Reworking Incantation Magic

[Anders]

I want to rework incantation magic so that it fits a more Conan-esque game, where fireballs are not in style. So...

1. Remove indirect damage. This is a big one - it means that spells will work more like curses. The only exception to this would be something like Create Fire, which makes flames spring up in an area. Those spells would still take the normal range penalties + the cost for area. They are not cast like fireballs - they still work like normal spells.
2. Introduce paths for Animals and Plants. Since there are no druids to be niche-protected, there is a need for these paths.
3. Likewise with Healing. Priests will use another system entirely for magic - Divine Favor - which hopefully is somewhat balanced against this.
4. Remove the 15 points Unusual Background required, but in exchange for this spells also add to Threshold. They add 1 per -1 modification on casting, so small spells are not dangerous to cast. But I want magic to feel dangerous to use.
5. Demonology and Necromancy is even worse to use. They do not add threshold - instead they use the Spirit Assisted Magic from Thaumatology. Such spells - even if cast for good purposes - rely on evil spirits to work and carries a commensurate price. You need a contract with an evil spirit to work this kind of magic. On the other hand, they are IQ/Easy to learn...

I think that should do the trick. What does the hive mind think? What kind of threshold and energy recovery do you recommend?

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Anders

Create Fire, which makes flames spring up in an area.
Those spells would still take the normal range penalties + the cost for area.
They are not cast like fireballs - they still work like normal spells.

Glancing at M72 realized something interesting...

If cast in the air it creates a sphere "which falls".

So you couldn't for example have it hover in the middle of a chasm burning people who would jump through it, it would just fall into the gap...

But the interesting thing about that is you potentially could attack from long range without incurring range penalties by just letting gravity do the work.

But then I'm not sure what speed it would fall at. Fire doesn't exactly have much mass so I imagine the air would resist the descent much like it would a feather (little momentum energy) so it could take a long while to drift down to the ground, giving people lots of time to move aside?

Originally Posted by Anders

4. Remove the 15 points Unusual Background required, but in exchange for this spells also add to Threshold. They add 1 per -1 modification on casting, so small spells are not dangerous to cast. But I want magic to feel dangerous to use.

I'm not sure which 15 pt UB you mean...

In terms of 'also add' do you mean similar to one of the T80 options?

Like the 'trading' option where there's a 4 FP per Tally sub fee, or the 'some' where there's just a token 1 FP paid (kinda similar to Very Low Mana)

It sounds like you could mean something different like charging full FP cost AND full Tally cost? That sounds pretty cool.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Plane

I'm not sure which 15 pt UB you mean...

It's on pg 5.

Originally Posted by Plane

It sounds like you could mean something different like charging full FP cost AND full Tally cost? That sounds pretty cool.

Not quite. Vanilla Incantation Magic gives a -1 penalty to skill for every 10 points the spell costs. I do that and add one to tally for each -1. So a spell costing 55 spell points is -5 to cast and adds 5 points to Threshold.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Some comments as the author.

Originally Posted by Anders

1. Remove indirect damage. This is a big one - it means that spells will work more like curses. The only exception to this would be something like Create Fire, which makes flames spring up in an area. Those spells would still take the normal range penalties + the cost for area. They are not cast like fireballs - they still work like normal spells.

That seems doable. It would certainly fit the world more. I don't see any issues removing it or any impact it might have on the other bits of the system.

Originally Posted by Anders

2. Introduce paths for Animals and Plants. Since there are no druids to be niche-protected, there is a need for these paths.

I'd have one Path for both instead of two.

Originally Posted by Anders

3. Likewise with Healing. Priests will use another system entirely for magic - Divine Favor - which hopefully is somewhat balanced against this.

It more or less is. You don't really see a lot of healing though. I'd limit max healing to 3d or 4d at most.

Originally Posted by Anders

4. Remove the 15 points Unusual Background required, but in exchange for this spells also add to Threshold. They add 1 per -1 modification on casting, so small spells are not dangerous to cast. But I want magic to feel dangerous to use.

Do note that that UB is Magery 0 + Adept (Connection) under the hood. If you remove it, remember to add those back in to the campaign. Adept (Connection) is especially important for things like damaging curses otherwise you're going to take penalties.

Originally Posted by Anders

5. Demonology and Necromancy is even worse to use. They do not add threshold - instead they use the Spirit Assisted Magic from Thaumatology. Such spells - even if cast for good purposes - rely on evil spirits to work and carries a commensurate price. You need a contract with an evil spirit to work this kind of magic. On the other hand, they are IQ/Easy to learn...

Hmmm. So they are not real magic coming from the caster, but more like supplications to evil beings? That's generally how SAM works when you lower the difficult of the spell like that. Even then...IQ/E is probably TOO generous. I'd go IQ/H or MAYBE IQ/A.

Originally Posted by Anders

What kind of threshold and energy recovery do you recommend?

I cover this in Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

It more or less is. You don't really see a lot of healing though. I'd limit max healing to 3d or 4d at most.

So 1d per Magery level?

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Do note that that UB is Magery 0 + Adept (Connection) under the hood. If you remove it, remember to add those back in to the campaign. Adept (Connection) is especially important for things like damaging curses otherwise you're going to take penalties.

Ok. Didn't know that.

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

Hmmm. So they are not real magic coming from the caster, but more like supplications to evil beings? That's generally how SAM works when you lower the difficult of the spell like that. Even then...IQ/E is probably TOO generous. I'd go IQ/H or MAYBE IQ/A.

I cover this in Pyramid #3/66: The Laws of Magic

I'll look at #3/66.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anders

So 1d per Magery level?

Maybe align it with what could be done via first aid and then have it be multiplied by Magery+1. So if you had Magery 4 and it were TL3, then the caster could heal 1d-2 (1d-3 x 5 = 5d-15 or 1d-2). That actually seems a bit too harsh. Perhaps two or three times that.

Originally Posted by Anders

Ok. Didn't know that.

in DF Magery 0 has too much baggage so it had to go. I didn't feel like dealing with Connection issues for the spells so we included both as a UB. Magery 0 to allow casting the first place, and Adept (Connection) to ignore the non-adept rules for casting without connection to your target.

Originally Posted by Anders

I'll look at #3/66.

In most cases, I've covered a lot of stuff for RPM in that issue. I scoured Thaumatology and used most variants found in that book that I felt were compatible with RPM.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

In most cases, I've covered a lot of stuff for RPM in that issue. I scoured Thaumatology and used most variants found in that book that I felt were compatible with RPM.

So according to #3/66 the suggested numbers are 150/50. Given that I divide everything by 10, that would mean 15/5. That seems low... but on the other hand, magic is dangerous in Conan. Hmmm...

Meditate upon this I shall.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anders

So according to #3/66 the suggested numbers are 150/50. Given that I divide everything by 10, that would mean 15/5. That seems low... but on the other hand, magic is dangerous in Conan. Hmmm...

Meditate upon this I shall.

I'd personally do 30/10 or so. That's enough for a big enough spell in most instances.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Christopher R. Rice

I'd personally do 30/10 or so. That's enough for a big enough spell in most instances.

And since it works by Effect Shaping and not Energy Gathering, allow things like Increased Threshold and Faster Energy Recovery?

The reason I got rid of the UB is that I added Threshold in addition to skill penalties. The added burden of Threshold Magic was worth 15 points in my mind - what do you think?

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anders

And since it works by Effect Shaping and not Energy Gathering, allow things like Increased Threshold and Faster Energy Recovery?

Absolutely. Archmagi in Conan could do crazy stuff that lesser mages only dreamed of. To simulate that they need higher thresholds.

Originally Posted by Anders

The reason I got rid of the UB is that I added Threshold in addition to skill penalties. The added burden of Threshold Magic was worth 15 points in my mind - what do you think?

It's more a feature than anything else.